Hi John,
This one I can answer. Yes, it is default behaviour to continue playing after selections in the playback queue have finished. The feature is termed “Radio” and can be toggled on or off for each queue. Click on the stave/quaver icon in the footer bar to bring up the queue and you will see the option to Start Radio on the right hand side.
The Roon devs will check into this thread shortly and investigate other issues. Hopefully they can be resolved swiftly.
I understand what the radio thing is supposed to do. But why didn’t it first play the remaining three movements of the piece that I had already selected? They were all stored together as the same album!
There aren’t enough manual controls for my liking - pause but no stop?
Hi @John_Walker – thanks for all the feedback here, and sorry for the confusion.
Roon differs from pretty much all other players out there in a number of ways, but everything is carefully designed to focus on presenting your music in the appropriate context, as opposed to focusing on simply taking your files and dumping the data embedded in them into a sortable spreadsheet.
All of this is done automatically, and while Roon provides a variety of tools for pushing the automatically retrieved data in the right direction, the learning curve can be sometimes be a bit discouraging for people who’ve already spent a good deal of time manually organizing their music in other applications. And of course, that’s doubly true if you’re having problems with the initial import 
Most people find that Roon opens up their collection in all kinds of new ways, so I’d encourage you to keep an open mind. I’m going to go through this thread and try to answer as many of these questions as I can, but before we move forward, I’d like to make sure we get your collection fully imported. I assume the little spinner in the top-right (near Bookmarks and Search) has disappeared? Do you have a file or two that failed to import you can send us, so we can get a quick look at what’s not importing?
If you have dropbox or similar, feel free to PM me a link – otherwise, I can provide you a way to upload a file or two directly to us.
Looking forward to getting these questions answered for you soon @John_Walker!
Hi John,
Roon will play whatever is in the queue. Play Album, Add to Queue, Play Next etc. You can Play From Here by selecting a track in an Album (Right Click or Long Press) and using the button at top left.
andybob - please read my posts fully before replying. It would make life easier if it was obvious how to stop playback, and/or edit the current playlist. BTW several of the ‘buttons at top left’ disappear once I’ve started playback. Is this a feature?
Mike: the little spinner is no longer visible. I’ll try Dropboxing some files to you, but I think I’ve got the answer already, summarised below.
Problem 1: The program has not installed as an application - I cannot access it from the ‘Start’ menu. I’ve had to navigate into Adminstrator’s directory and extract a shortcut to roon.exe which I’ve put on the desktop for now.
Problem 2: missing entries resulting from:
LP transcriptions where timings and/or filenames don’t match database entries for the corresponding CD.
CD/SACD box sets where the algorithm can only match to a single CD from the set (and where the manual process to re-link entries is painful.)
CD/SACD rips where I’ve either edited metadata or changed filenames
Inability to read .cue files
Problem 3: The right hand ‘sorted by’ option does not let one sort by Composer. You claimed to have made special efforts for Classical! With a big collection like mine, the cover view is too low resolution. Swipe, swipe, swipe. One should be able to reduce the size of each cover image to speed up navigation. Nevertheless, an alphabetically sorted text list actually works better when you’ve a lot of files. But until the database is fully populated, then none of the other navigation functions are much use.
Problem 4: You are sourcing the metadata from a single company whose commercial model, independence, and ability to provide quality reviews seems questionable.
Finally, thanks for your helpful approach, but some of your statements don’t make sense. Why should it be worth my while climbing a learning curve with your software (and paying for it) if I’ve already done a better job myself? And my first ever experience of dumping music file metadata into a sortable spreadsheet was as a direct experience of advice received on this forum, and I did it to debug your program. I’ve never felt like I was doing that before with MediaCenter…
Yes, this is by design, similar to how programs like Google Chrome have installed in recent years. It affords us a number of advantages, not the least of which is a smoother update process, as anyone who’s upgraded Roon on multiple computers with a single click can tell you.
I am, however, surprised the Roon installer didn’t create a shortcut for you – I just did a fresh install on Windows 10 and a shortcut was created for me. I’m going to talk with the team and see if we can reproduce that behavior on Windows 10, but can you confirm where you looked? All Programs? Did you search? You definitely shouldn’t have needed to create a shortcut manually.
We use a pretty complex algorithm to match your files to our database, and while track timings and file names are part of that process, there’s more to it than that. Classical collections do sometimes get a lower hit rate than popular music, often because people have developed their own system for overcoming the limitations of file tags when it comes to handling the complexities of classical music.
I don’t know the specifics of your collection, but I can tell you that Roon’s metadata is almost certainly going to be deeper and more expressive than what’s possible with simple file tags, not to mention that it’s constantly updated on the fly, as we add new data sources and refine our metadata based on the feedback we hear from members like you!
Keep in mind that while it’s possible to find albums under his name, Beethoven never actually released any albums of course. In Roon you can browse his actual output – his works! You can even filter down to only the period or form you’re in the mood for, and then browse the different performances of the work that are in your collection or available on Tidal. Would it be possible to type all that data, or find all those links, by hand? I suppose, but I don’t think anyone should have to.
I would give this a read – we’re working on some changes for the re-link process that should make it easier to use, but in general, sensible folder structure and tags should help Roon identify the box set properly with no manual editing needed. Interested to hear more about what’s gone wrong here for you.
Unfortunately Roon doesn’t support single files and .CUE sheets right now, so my recommendation would be to split those up or make a split copy for Roon (@danny talked a little bit about the reasons for this here).
Well, you’re right that a lot of Roon’s browsing functionality (including those features specifically targeted at classical music) depends on your library being identified. That said, this another area where Roon is subtly trying to improve on what other players are doing.
Composers can absolutely release albums, but in those cases they’re often functioning more like a performer (as the album is documenting a performance), and their name would likely appear in both places. Generally speaking, composers release works, which have very different properties than albums, and which we think deserve the same kind of first class treatment that popular music affords artists, albums, and tracks.
That said, In Roon you can use Focus to see albums in your collection on which a composer’s works were performed, but beyond that, I’m not sure sorting albums by composer makes sense in Roon – where would albums with multiple composers go? Or albums with no composer credits, or where a composer is credited on a single song? By using Focus to see the albums to which a composer contributed, you’re still free to add additional context by sorting them according to the year they were released, or the number of times you’ve listened to them for example. You could also use Focus to further refine your selection, to a particular label or conductor, for example.
With more of your collection matched up to Roon metadata, I think you’ll find the Composer and Works browsers to be incredibly powerful, and I can tell you we have some significant improvements to our classical product planned as well, which should make both our identification and browsing functionality even more powerful for classical fans soon.
We source data from a number of places, but the data you see in Roon is generated by our proprietary service, which is constantly being refined and updated as new albums are released, biographies are updated, existing data is improved, and errors are corrected.
Well, I appreciate the feedback here. Like I mentioned, Roon depends on getting good identifications, and generally speaking we do very well, although our hit rate can go down when people have spent significant time developing their own metadata systems to tag their files. I don’t know how well we did in your collection or how you groom your files – all I can tell you is that if we didn’t identify a significant portion of your collection, you may not be getting the full experience yet.
My point is, I think it takes time to fully appreciate the depth of Roon’s metadata and browsing functionality. Based on what I know about your feedback here, I think you’ll find significant value in how Roon allows you to interact with your library, and I would love to have your feedback as we finalize the upcoming classical work.
Finally, to answer your question about Radio: when we’ve identified a work in Roon, we get the benefit of no longer having to treat it like a couple of loose files or a few rows in a spreadsheet – we can take the 4 files that make up the work, and consider it the way the composer did. The movements can be played individually, but in most cases, you’ll want to hear the work as a whole.
Radio is designed to simply pick similar music anytime your selections have run out, so if you’ve played a complete work that is identified by Roon, Radio should kick in and start selecting similar works – you can see this is the case in this screen shot, as Roon has picked a 4 part work for me, denoted by the 4 numbered boxes on the right.
Wow, this post got long. Sorry. 
Let me know if I’ve missed any questions here @John_Walker – happy to discuss further, if you can bear it 
Mike
Firstly, please do not apologise for a thorough and careful assessment of the issues I’ve raised. I’m very impressed. There are other calls on my time, so I’ll respond to each point one at a time.
Installation: You did something non-standard and so did I, but for a good reason. Whenever installing to Windows, I deliberately uncheck the box saying ‘create a shortcut on the desktop’. I’ve done this for years because I don’t like randomly located, hard-to-see desktop icons, and its fine anyway because the program normally appears in the ‘Start’ menu so I can access it when I need it. Familiar? It’s a bit like how I organise my music files. I can’t be the only PC user who does this, can I?
Security Your own question, though raises a significant concern. There is nothing with the name Roon available to me from ‘Start’->‘All apps’. The reason for this is I practice basic security measures, one of which is I only allow Administrator to install software. I installed Roon with a right-click and ‘Run as Adminstrator’, so Roon.exe ended up hidden away in Administrator’s directory, not in any of those belonging to the actual users. I can confirm that Roon IS visible from Adminstrator’s account, but not mine. This one is really worrying - it gives the impression that Roon plc does not practice basic PC security. I’m not going to listen to music while logged in as the Administrator!!! If it’s any consolation, you aren’t the only software developer who has done this, but this is really basic.
(Footnote: Ubuntu/Unity allows one to place frequently accessed program icons in a strip down the LH side of the screen where they are easy to see and access, whereas every Tom Dick or Harriet Windows developer sticks his or her unrecognisable icon for a graphics card driver update or once-in-a-lifetime download manager onto my desktop. After six months, you can’t find anything.)
My post on installation has evidently been moved. Anyone say why?
On the third point: inability to sort by composer. All classical review magazines that I’m aware of, plus the Penguin Stereo Record Guide sort by composer. Presto and Hyperion let you browse their catalogues by composer. That’s how one looks at classical music - the composers are the instigators, the creators; one buys ‘works’, not ‘albums’. Composers endure, works endure, but in classical, albums are ephemeral. The rest of your argument is woolly, and makes little sense to me. There are recitals and concerts that are released as ‘albums’; but these are edge cases; often major works are released along with a few other tracks which could be by the same or a different composer. It’s the major work which I want to find, not the ‘album’.
I’m not seeing any deleted posts for you @John_Walker, so hard to say what’s going on here.
Like I mentioned, Roon installs to App Data, which means it installs per user. We’ve had one or two people who’ve wanted Roon to be available for multiple users and unfortunately that’s not supported for the moment. I understand why you’re trying to install that way, but unfortunately if you do, you’ll need to run as Admin too. It is a little untraditional, but it makes updates a breeze, and even Microsoft’s ClickOnce install framework installs this way.
As for your last question, I think you may be misunderstanding me, or maybe I’m misunderstanding your question about the dropdown. My point above was that sorting albums by composer doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Browsing your collection by composer is absolutely sensible, and its something we consider a primary use case in Roon. Roon is designed to present composers in context, with a variety of ways to sort and filter them that go way beyond what’s possible when your simply sorting a spreadsheet of files based on what’s in the COMPOSER field.
I think we’re maybe saying the same thing, but let me know if I’ve missed something here.
I’m having the exact same problem on a Windows 10 Pro machine with 23,764 tracks. I found the “Force Rescan” option buried deep in the settings and I’m hoping this will fix my problem. It seems the software should scan the library each time it is started but this doesn’t seem to be the case. It catches the new albums but it doesn’t go back and scan for the old albums it might have missed.
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It really depends on your configuration – some setups notify us regularly any time a change is made on the drive, but some configurations are less reliable, and it usually comes down to what operating system and storage device you’re using.
Let me know some more details about how you’re configured and what you’re seeing, and we can look into it, ok?
I find that AMG is relatively limited when it comes to classical. You will get many more hits from Gracenote.
I have many classical cds that are out of print, or earlier editions than those currently in print. Roon (AMG) is not great at recognizing these.
My Configuration is Windows 10 Pro/Core i7 running at 4.01 GHz/16 GB of RAM/Samsung 850 Pro nVMSE SSD for the OS drive and multiple other internal WD mechanical drives for storage. My sound device is a NuPrime uDSD running in ASIO mode.
I just reinstalled the Roon software after noticing my credit card was charged for the yearly subscription. (I uninstalled it this past winter and forgot about it.) Roon once again only found 341 of my 2370 albums. (My J. River software finds all these albums with no problem.)
The Roon software sounds excellent on my system in ASIO mode but it can’t seem to recognize all our albums. Our music resides on our home server but is synced over to all our home’s computers across or LAN using Windows 10 Pro’s Client-Side-Caching feature on each of our client machines including the one on which Roon runs.
Restarting the Roon software doesn’t do anything to help fix the bug where it can’t seem to find all my albums. Please help as I’ve been charged again for the use of this software and it never has worked right on my system.
Hey @alvester – sorry for the trouble here. Wish we’d known about these issues earlier!
@Eric and I can make sure we get all your content imported properly, but can you start by looking over this article and letting us know if it helps?
If you’re still stuck, let us know and @Eric will probably want to take a look at your logs and a file or two that won’t import – feel free to upload a few files to Dropbox or similar and we’ll take a look.
Thanks, and looking forward to getting this resolved for you!
Thanks Mike. I see that WMA Lossless is not supported which I overlooked. I assumed that Roon could handle all of the major Lossless formats since it’s been regarded as an audiophile piece of software. I guess I got excited and jumped the gun when I heard about Roon. I tried it out and really liked it’s sound plus it has a very nice interface. I thought that the software was going to be updated as time went on and it would fix my missing music problem as I thought it was simply a bug/growing pains issue but now I see it simply isn’t compatible with the majority of my library.
As over 2000 of my albums are WMA Lossless & not compatible with Roon is there a way I can get any of my money back from my Roon subscription which just renewed at the top of June? (Aside from my FLAC & DSD download purchases and home made DSD recordings I only switched over to ripping FLAC Lossless late last year after I got all of our home’s computers upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.)
I’ll understand if I can’t get money back from my subscription but I figured I’d ask as I’ll have to simply cancel my subscription to stop the renewal happening again next June. Please let me know if I should contact someone else regarding this.
Why not set up a Batch Conversion of your 2,000 WMA Albums into the FLAC format??
Especially when you say you like what Roon does for you
I managed a batch conversion like this in less than 24 hours for about 1000 albums. This was pre Roon to get my files to work with sofrware that did not support Apple.Lossles files. No problem really provided you have the disc space and you should,have that if you have enough space for regular backups.
This thread explains why Roon does not support WMA.
Hey @alvester – as mentioned in the thread @philr linked above, there’s simply no way for us to support WMA on all the different platforms we support Roon runs on, and it’s only come up a handful of times since launch.
My recommendation would be to read over the thread and consider doing a conversion to something like FLAC – this will be a bit perfect conversion so you won’t lose anything with regards to sound quality, and that will also ensure your files are compatible with all sorts of devices and programs for years to come, including Roon.
Let me know how that sounds and we’ll make sure you’re happy here @alvester.
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